The story of the world's great scientists as children

1. Joule

The famous British scientist Joule loved physics since he was a child. He often did some experiments on electricity and heat by himself.

One year during the holidays, Joule and his brother traveled to the countryside together. The smart and studious Joule did not forget to do his physics experiments even when he was playing. He found a lame horse, held by his brother, and quietly hid behind it. He used a Voda battery to pass current to the horse, hoping to test the animal's reaction after being stimulated by the current. As a result, the reaction he wanted to see occurred. The horse jumped wildly after receiving the electric shock, and almost kicked his brother.

Although danger has appeared, this has not affected the mood of Xiao Joule, who loves to experiment, at all. He and his brother rowed a boat to a lake surrounded by mountains. Joule wanted to test how big the echo was here. They filled their muskets with gunpowder and pulled the triggers. Unexpectedly, with a "bang", a long flame spurted out from the muzzle of the gun, burning Joule's eyebrows, and almost scared his brother into falling into the lake.

At this time, the sky was covered with thick clouds and there was lightning and thunder. Joule, who was just about to go ashore to hide from the rain, found that the rumble of thunder could only be heard after a long time after the lightning. What was going on? Joule couldn't care less. Hiding from the rain, I dragged my brother up a hill and carefully recorded the time between lightning and thunder with my pocket watch.

After school started, Joule couldn’t wait to tell the teacher all the experiments he had done and asked the teacher for advice. The teacher looked at the studious and inquisitive Joule and smiled, and patiently explained to him: "The propagation speeds of light and sound are different. The speed of light is fast and the speed of sound is slow, so people always want to see lightning and then hear thunder, but in fact Lightning and thunder happened at the same time." Joule suddenly understood. From then on, he became more obsessed with learning scientific knowledge. Through continuous learning and careful observation and calculation, he finally discovered the thermal work equivalent and the law of conservation of energy, and became an outstanding scientist.

2. Franklin

One day in June 1752, in the suburbs of Philadelphia, USA, there were dark clouds, lightning and thunder. On a wide lawn, two people, an old man and a young man, were having fun. Flying a kite there vigorously. Suddenly, a bolt of lightning split the clouds and made a "zigzag" in the sky, followed by a sound of thunder and raindrops pouring down.

I saw the old man shouting loudly: "William, stand in the thatched house over there and tighten the kite string." At this time, lightning flashed one after another, and the thunder was louder than the other. Suddenly William shouted: "Dad, look!" The old man looked in the direction his son pointed, and saw the tightened hemp rope, which was originally smooth. Suddenly, he became furious, and the thin fibers stood upright one by one. Woke up.

He shouted happily: "The lightning has arrived!" While telling his son to be careful, he slowly approached the copper key connected to the hemp rope with his hand. Suddenly he fell to the ground as if he had been pushed by someone, his whole body numb.

Ignoring the pain, he climbed up from the ground and connected the Leyden bottle he brought with him to the copper key. Sure enough, there was electricity in the Leyden jar, and it also released sparks. It turned out that electricity from the sky and electricity from the earth are the same! He and his son took the Leyden jar home as if they had found a treasure.

The people who captured the sky lightning were Franklin and his son William. Franklin was not only a great scientist, but also an outstanding statesman and diplomat. He was one of the initiators of the Declaration of Independence and the first ambassador of the United States to a foreign country.

After the kite experiment, Franklin wrote a paper "On the Identity of Lightning and Electricity", which explained the nature of lightning and proposed the idea of ??manufacturing lightning rods to protect buildings from lightning strikes. The lightning rod invented by Franklin suddenly became popular and spread to Britain, France, Germany, Europe and America.

3. Nobel

Nobel’s father was a talented inventor who was devoted to chemical research, especially the study of explosives. Influenced by his father, Nobel showed a tenacious and brave character since he was a child. He often went to experiment with explosives with his father. After many years of studying explosives with his father, his interest soon turned to applied chemistry.

In the summer of 1862, he began research on nitroglycerin. This is an arduous journey full of danger and sacrifice. Death was always with him. An explosion occurred during an explosives experiment. The laboratory was blown up without a trace, and all five assistants died. Even his youngest brother was not spared.

This astonishing explosion dealt a very heavy blow to Nobel's father, and he died not long after. Out of fear, his neighbors also complained to the government about Nobel. After that, the government did not allow Nobel to conduct experiments in the city.

But Nobel was unyielding and moved his laboratory to a boat in a lake on the outskirts of the city to continue his experiments. After long-term research, he finally discovered a substance that is very easy to cause explosions - mercury fulminate. He used mercury fulminate to make explosive detonators and successfully solved the problem of detonating explosives. This was the invention of the detonator. It is a major breakthrough on the path of Nobel science.

Nobel made many inventions in his life, and received 255 patents, including 129 types of explosives alone. Even when he was dying, he still couldn't forget his research on new explosives.

4. Einstein

Einstein was the greatest physicist of the twentieth century. He liked to use his hands and brain since he was a child. Once in a handicraft class, he wanted to make a small wooden stool. The bell rang after class, and the students rushed to take out their works and handed them to the beautiful and stern female teacher. Einstein did not show his work and was so anxious that he was sweating profusely. The female teacher looked at the boy kindly, believing that he could hand in a good work.

The next day, Einstein gave the female teacher a very crudely made small bench with one leg nailed off to the side. The female teacher, who was full of expectations, said to the class with great dissatisfaction: "Have any of you seen such a bad stool?" The students snickered and shook their heads. The teacher looked at Einstein again and said angrily: "I don't think there will be a worse stool in the world." There was a burst of laughter in the classroom.

Einstein's face was red. He walked up to the teacher and said firmly: "Yes, teacher, there are worse stools than this." The classroom suddenly fell silent. Everyone looked at Einstein in confusion. He walked back to his seat, took out two rougher wooden benches from under the desk, and said, "These are the first and second times I made them. The one I just gave to the teacher was the third wooden bench. Although It’s not satisfying, but it’s better than the first two.”

No one laughed this time. The female teacher nodded kindly and thoughtfully to Einstein, and the classmates also nodded. He cast a look of admiration and approval.

5. Watt

Watt was born in England. Due to his poor family, he had no chance to go to school. He first worked as an apprentice in a watch shop, and then worked as an instrument repairman at the University of Glasgow. Watt was smart and studious. , he often took time to listen to professors' lectures, and he personally played with the instruments all day long, so he accumulated a lot of knowledge.

In 1764, the University of Glasgow received a Newcomen steam engine that required repair, and the task was assigned to Watt. After Watt repaired it, he saw how hard he was working, like an old man panting and trembling while walking with a heavy load. He felt that it should be improved.

He noticed that the main problem was that the cylinder heated up and then cooled down, and cooled down and heated up again with the steam, which wasted a lot of heat. Can it be kept cold and the piston work as usual? So he rented a cellar with his own money, collected several scrapped steam engines, and determined to build a new machine.

From then on, Watt played with these machines all day long. Two years later, he finally came up with a new machine. But after trying to ignite it, the cylinder leaked air everywhere. Watt tried his best to wrap it with felt and oilcloth. Several months later, he still couldn't cure the problem. Watt did not give up. After unremitting efforts, he finally designed a condenser that was separate from the cylinder. This tripled the thermal efficiency and used only a quarter of the original coal.

As soon as this key point was broken through, Watt suddenly felt that his future was bright. He went to the university to ask Professor Black for some theoretical questions, and the professor introduced him to technician Wilkin who invented the boring machine. The technician immediately used the method of boring the barrel to make the cylinder and piston, solving the most troublesome problem. Air leakage problem.

In 1784, Watt's steam engine was equipped with a crankshaft and flywheel. The piston could be continuously pushed by steam coming in from both sides. There was no need for manpower to adjust the valve. The world's first real steam engine was born.